Korwahk warriors didn’t bother with pennants or, at least, I’d never seen any.
And on top of the vast plateau in the official clearing there was a throng of Korwahk warriors, maybe two hundred, none painted except those who were in my guard.
They were all standing at what could only be described as loose attention and they were all fully armed.
As we rode along the side of the plateau, I saw Lahn sitting on his throne on the platform carved in stone into the jutting lip of the plateau, a platform which had five deep steps up. The Eunuch was by his side, my white throne of horns on his other. And as we made it to the front, I sucked in another breath when I saw there was a grand chair located about a foot from the bottom step of the platform.
In it was a man wearing a steel breastplate of armor with a black and red dragon painted on it. There was a helmet of armor by his booted foot that had a shock of black and red feathers shooting out of the top. But he wore breeches and boots and, on his head, a crown pulled low, almost to his forehead, made of gold inset with diamonds and rubies.
He was graying and jowly with ruddy cheeks and mean, beady eyes. He had a very big gut which meant the breastplate had to be fashioned to contain it and it made him look ludicrous.
I did not laugh or even smile.
This was because his beady eyes were on me and they blazed.
Beside him, my heart lurched to see, stood Geoffrey, looking much thinner, much paler but much cleaner.
His eyes were on me too and they also blazed.
I was thinking whatever this was, something I already sensed was not good, was actually even worse.
Last, there were eight, tall, armed men wearing full armor lined behind the man with the crown’s chair.
Bohtan rode to my side and muttered, “You do not dismount. Swing your leg sidesaddle. Zahnin will deliver you to our king.”
I gave a slight incline of my head and did as instructed when we stopped before Lahn who did not watch us dismount, his gaze never shifted from the man seated before him.
As Bohtan told me, Zahnin came forward and pulled me from Zephyr. He escorted me, with Ghost prowling close at my side, to my throne and I vaguely realized all of his lieutenants had formed behind us as we walked.
Lahn didn’t look at me as I moved in front of him nor did he do so as I sat and my guards moved to flank the backs of our thrones, Zahnin standing beside mine or next to Ghost who had settled on her belly, her head up, her eyes on the man in the chair, her demeanor watchful.
“You do not bow to your king?” the man in the chair said and my eyes shot to him. “My Circe grows a big head.”
I blinked and realized several things at once. One, The Xacme was translating for Lahn which I thought was weird since Lahn was mostly fluent in English. Two, this man in front of me thought he knew me and I didn’t think that was good. And three, I knew as a dangerous vibe slithered through the air that Lahn did not take kindly to this man calling me his Circe.
When no one said anything, I ventured in English, “Do I know you, sir?”
I felt that vibe coming from Lahn shift but only to get sharper, more alert, no less dangerous.
At my words, the man in front of me returned my blink.
“Do you know me?” he asked.
“Yes, do I know you?” I asked back.
“I would hope so, my dove, since you’ve been warming my bed since you were fourteen years of age,” he replied and I couldn’t contain a sharp gasp nor could I hide the disgust in it.
Then I whispered, “What?”
His eyes narrowed. “Good question, sweet Circe, but the what I would wish to know is what do you expect to gain by playing this game?”
“Game?” I asked quietly, my mind reeling, trying to catch a thought.
“You know you are mine. You have been mine since you were six. You became really mine,” he leaned forward suggestively, “when you were fourteen.”
“That’s absurd,” I returned, not thinking and not including the words, “and sickening” because, seriously, fourteen? Not to mention, I’d never let this man touch me. He was old, for one, he was gross, for another.
His brows went up and he leaned back. “Absurd?”
“Absolutely. I’ve never seen you in my life,” I replied.
He glared at me. Geoffrey shifted at his side. I tried to stop myself from hyperventilating.
Then his eyes moved to Lahn. “I tire of this. You know why we are here.”
The Xacme translated (unnecessarily) and Lahn grunted, “Meena.”
“Yes,” The Xacme called.
“Then I will lay down our terms. You will see in front of you on your plain that with me, I brought thirty thousand Middlelandian soldiers. I do know, of course, that your savages will cut through them with all due haste. I also know, before they do, they will ride into Korwahn and likely not be careful who their swords slash through… women, wives, future warriors.”
I sucked in breath again at his heinous threat but he continued.
“Not to mention the warriors of yours they will take in the process, on the eve of your riding on Maroo. This is, I would suspect, not what you would wish just prior to you leading your campaign.”
I would suspect it too.
He kept speaking. “In payment for you seizing my enchantress, and to stop us from riding on Korwahn, I will accept four trunks of Korwahk gold, four of your silver, four of your diamonds, the same of your rubies, emeralds and sapphires and…” he paused and looked up at Geoffrey then back at Lahn, “another trunk of gold as payment for what you did to one of my most trusted ambassadors.”
My eyes flew to Geoffrey who was staring at me with unconcealed hate. Then he leaned forward and opened his mouth wide. I leaned back instantly for even in the light of the torches and fire pits, I saw he had no tongue.
Oh God. Lahn had had him captured and his tongue cut out for speaking to me the day of the selection.
No wonder he was so thin and pale.
Oh God.
I tore my eyes away from Geoffrey and looked back at the man with the crown.
Lahn didn’t reply.
So the man did. “You delay which is unfortunate. You must know I can easily signal my troops to ride. I’m sure your men have been alerted and are preparing their defense. I will countenance no delays.”
Lahn spoke then, in Korwahk, with The Eunuch translating. “You are on Korwahk land, King Baldur, be careful how you speak. You do not rule here.”
So this was King Baldur. Wow.
He was a jerk.
His chest puffed out. “And I’ll remind you, you are not the only king in attendance.”
“I am the only one that matters,” Lahn replied in Korwahk after The Eunuch translated and upon hearing it, King Baldur instantly lost it and slammed a fleshy fist into the arm of his chair.
“The gall!” King Baldur snapped. “You do not respect the crown I wear; you torture my emissary and steal my enchantress. You have no honor. I know you’re primitives but you cannot expect to behave like this in affairs of state without reprisal.”
“Threats of intimidation, preposterous demands and righteous bluster may be how you conduct business in the Northlands but you are no longer in the Northlands,” Lahn replied (again in Korwahk).
King Baldur shifted angrily in his chair before he cried, “This is outrageous! The woman who sits beside you belongs to me!”
I tensed but Lahn leaned forward, forearm to knee, not aggressively, just casually and returned, “My golden queen does not know you, how can she belong to you?”
“She lies!” King Baldur shouted with a hand pointed in my direction and Ghost growled, pushing up on her front paws to sitting, her blue eyes not leaving the king.
“A caution, fat man,” Lahn said in a low voice and King Baldur’s face went red with fury when the words were translated, “do not insult my queen.” He opened his mouth to retort but Lahn kept speaking. “This man at your side is no emissary. He is a spy.
In the Southlands, these activities are dealt with harshly. He has been among us for many years. He knows our ways. His actions were foolish and his punishment swift. If he has run crying to you like a girl then he should not have boarded the ship that would cross the Marhac Sea that would bring him to the dust and stone of Korwahk.”
Okay, cutting someone’s tongue out was harsh but Lahn was not wrong. You know the rules, you play the game, you lose, you pay the price.
Still. Yikes!
“Your actions are barbaric, including you seizing women and forcing them to be slaves to your cocks, one of these women being mine and she sits by your side. If you wish to keep her at your side, I will have restitution!” King Baldur yelled.
“Do you threaten to steal my queen?” Lahn asked.
“You do not pay then you must be prepared for what happens, all that will happen, when my soldiers ride,” King Baldur shot back, the armored men at his back straightened attentively and Lahn sat back.
What he didn’t do was speak.
This silence lasted a long time and was clearly more than King Baldur could endure for his eyes flashed to me.
“Circe, come to your king this instant!” he ordered. “You serve me.”
“I’m telling you, sir, I do not know you,” I replied, he jumped out of his seat and the instant he did, Ghost gained all four of hers and started growling.
“Do not lie, you stupid bitch!” he boomed. “Come to your king!”
“Sit,” Lahn ordered in English and King Baldur’s gaze snapped to him with both anger and obvious surprise at his use of Baldur’s tongue.
“Do not, you stinking, savage animal, dare to command me!” King Baldur clipped.
“You sit or I’ll force you to sit by cutting your legs off at the knees,” Lahn told him in English again and I tensed because I knew he could do this and would. He was not armed but I suspected he could be, if he wanted, in less than a second.
“The insolence!” King Baldur shouted. “You cannot attack a king during a state visit!”
“You are in the Southlands, fat man, I can do what I wish. Now sit on your fat ass or your nation will lose its king. Your son, who is weak and prefers to have his cock stroked while he accepts his lover’s through his ass, will succeed your throne. Which means, since he is weak, his lover will rule your nation.”
King Baldur snapped his mouth shut, a telling sign that this was true. His eyes widening told the tale that he was surprised Lahn had this information.
“It is unfortunate,” Lahn went on, “as there are many men who prefer this, that your son is not the kind who is strong. But you know, fat man, that he isn’t and his lover is greedy, manipulative and foolish. If your son sits on your throne and allows his lover to pull his strings, your own people will revolt to reunite with their sisterland of Lunwyn or Fleuridia or even Hawkvale as well as Prince Noctorno will ride on Middleland to seek vengeance for your years of gluttonous follies and they will succeed. Middleland will cease to exist as they cut up pieces as their glory.”
King Baldur glared at him then proclaimed, “We are done. We will ride,” and he started to lift his hand but Lahn warned, “I would not do that.”
At Lahn’s low, rumbling, severe tone, King Baldur’s hand arrested in mid-air and he continued to glare at Lahn.
When he did, Lahn shared, “You know of our plans to ride on Maroo. You know when we plan to ride on Maroo. I would hope you are not foolish enough to think you and your soldiers have crossed my land without my knowledge so you also know I would prepare to ride against you to defend Korwahn.”
King Baldur said not a word so I guessed Lahn was right, he came through Korwahk fully knowing Lahn knew he was coming which was a bizarre thing to do.
Lahn went on. “What I know is, to have your tantrum and try your hand at taking our treasure, for, do not think, fat man, that I suspect for one moment you wish more to have your magical one back but instead you wish to return to your throne with trunks of our riches. Your play centers around increasing the wealth of your throne, not your nation. Your throne. So you think that, if I were to refuse your demands, while I am otherwise engaged in defending my city, you will unleash a plot to kidnap my queen. This means you would sacrifice thirty thousand of your soldiers to my warrior’s steel for a tantrum and for greed. Nevertheless, you undoubtedly have an escape plan so, as your warriors fall, you can safely return to your homeland and continue your tyranny at the same time demand ransom in return for my golden bride.”
He paused, King Baldur made no sound or move and Lahn continued.
“What you do not know is that we have allied with Keenhak. They have sent forty thousand of their warriors to aid in our campaign against Maroo. And as you blustered before me, feeling safe in the knowledge that your soldiers are lined behind you, Keenhak warriors took formation behind them. You lift that hand, I lift mine and your soldiers would be cut down before they took their first breath of Korwahn air and I, fat man, nor my brethren, would have to lift a blade except to cut down the metal men at your back.”
King Baldur’s hand stayed lifted, his lips started to curl and Lahn finished.
“And, you should know, your archers who took their positions an hour ago were dispatched before my queen reached Korwahn’s Majestic Rim. Not one of them lives.”
Geoffrey took a step back. King Baldur’s face paled and his hand dropped. I tried hard not to smile. Ghost sat down on her ass.
“Now,” Lahn went on, “you will leave with no trunks filled with Korwahk’s bounty in your greedy, fat hands. What you will leave with is your life and the knowledge that if you ever carry forth a plot that threatens my golden queen, you will die choking on your own balls and you’ll do it while staring in my eyes.”
King Baldur visibly swallowed. Geoffrey took another step back.
Lahn grew impatient. “I am savage so you must recognize I am being generous with this offer. Therefore you also must know your continued presence is making me impatient.”
Geoffrey shuffled back quickly, losing himself in the sea of Korwahk warriors behind him.
King Baldur gave Lahn one last, long glare then shifted his substantial bulk around and barked at the men behind him. “Bring me my mount!”
And I sat silent beside a silent Lahn as his mount was brought to him and we watched as it took two tries for him to heft his substantial weight in the saddle while his armored soldiers deftly mounted their own steeds and then, with some haste, they were away.
When I lost sight of them, I turned to Lahn to see his head tipped back and his eyes were on Zahnin.
“Take her to our rooms. Lock her in. She is attended by no slave and no wife and keep the animal from her. Do it now,” Lahn ordered, stood and stalked down the steps while I blinked after him.
“Come, my golden queen, now,” Zahnin demanded firmly and slowly, dazedly, my head turned to him.
His arm was extended to me.
I looked back where Lahn had disappeared and I felt my chest rise and fall with my rapid, deep breaths.
Whatever was wrong wasn’t over. And I had the distinct feeling, even as bad as that was, the worst was yet to come.
So I stood without the aid of Zahnin, straightened my shoulders, kept my head held high and I walked to Zephyr.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Reveal
I paced Lahn and my bedroom, my sarong flying behind me and I did this for a long time. It could have been an hour or it could have been five of them.
It felt like five.
I didn’t even have Ghost with me and as the time slid by, my adrenalin surged, as did my agitation. I was so freaking out, I was stuck in my head and I didn’t cleanse my face or even take off my crown of feathers.
I just paced or walked to one of the four windows and tried to see what I could see in the torchlit streets.
I could see nothing.
So I paced more.
Lahn had locked me in our rooms.
Locked me in our rooms.
He didn’t look at me, he didn’t speak to me, in fact, although he said he believed me and made threats to defend me; he didn’t look or speak to me at all during his confrontation with King Baldur.
He could do this, and had before, when he was in king mode but with where I was now, I knew this was something else. Something not good. In fact, so not good, it was bad.
And that King Baldur had known me. He’d said he’d known me since I was six.
What was that all about?
But I had a feeling I knew. I knew about pirate ships and kings. It was all coming together.
I was in a parallel universe and there was another Circe here, one who looked just like me, one who was not here now.
And King Baldur had called her his enchantress.
So maybe she held magic, knew she did, could manipulate it and maybe it was her who had transported herself out of this world and to mine, sending me here.
If she knew how, after being seized by pirates and then Korwahk scouts, she would. If she knew of their practices in Korwahk and what awaited her while she waited in that corral, she’d do it. I knew it.
Sending me here.
Good God.
And knowing this, she’d never want to come back. She could have no clue that Lahn would be who and how he was. She would only think she’d escaped a nightmare.
Which meant, since my magic wasn’t at my command but at the whims of my emotions, I couldn’t get back to explain things to my father, my friends, to say good-bye and certainly there would be no visits back and forth.
I was stuck here forever and now I wasn’t certain that was good.
The door opened and Lahn walked in. It closed behind him and I heard the bolt thrown home, just as it did when the silent Zahnin had escorted me in; just as the doors to the bathing pool had been bolted seconds later. There were no doors that led to the balcony around the courtyard from our dressing room and bathroom-ish type room.
The Golden Dynasty f-2 Page 40